


a thread through the unknown

by thimbleoflight



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Multi, a weekend by a star in three parts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-25
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 13:04:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2508869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimbleoflight/pseuds/thimbleoflight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He'll take them to the birth of a star.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

He takes them both to see the birth of a star and they hold hands in front of it (and him). The three of them spend two days there, an afternoon, a night, until the next afternoon, long enough to circle around the thing and for Clara to read its coming history to them, or at least, the interesting bits. She does voices when she reads stories, and he could listen to her forever, even if he tries to look like he’s busy while she talks. Her voice is relaxing, while he tinkers with the mechanics of the TARDIS, and he likes the way that she breaks up the monotony of the sentences with a few comments of her own.

It’s long enough, too, for Danny to low-level needle him—and, you see, the Doctor’s smart, he picked this time and place because it’s beautiful and it’s _still_. He won’t be barking orders at them, no one taking charge to save the day. They’re antsy, that’s the word, waiting for something to happen, like it always does, but it doesn’t.

But that’s the gift he’s giving them, you see. A break, willingly taken, this time, no lies. Maybe it’s an apology, even, as much of one as he can give. He’s given it before, to other people, but it’s not about what he’s seen or hasn’t seen before, it’s for them.

He and Danny cook dinner for Clara, who waits for them with bright eyes and a bunch of sardonic quips. He’s not a good cook, but Danny is—even with several thousand years less of experience trying to cook. And Danny isn’t shy, Danny guides him around the kitchen, dragging him away from watching the boiling pot, a soft touch on the inside of his wrist to let him know his knife-holding techniques are lazy (good for a fight, bad for dicing carrots)—

“Yes, that package of spices, there. Good. Just a pinch.”

Danny strikes a balance of gentle and authoritative that could take the Doctor’s breath away, the Doctor’s never been so subtle in his life. He marvels at it, wonders what the man could do with that if he could consciously control it (or if he does, and he _doesn’t_ use it, well, that would be a waste). But if Danny won’t, the Doctor will certainly learn from him.

They go to bed early after dinner and he isn’t his previous self, he’s not got a five year old’s sense of what romance is, he knows they’re not sleeping in _bunk beds,_ for fuck’s sake, and he would never even remotely pretend to himself that they are.

Not that he thinks about it.

But they are beautiful, and beautiful in how they nuzzle close together in the last moments before the three of them separate for the night, noses to each other’s cheeks. They have soft eyes, doe-brown eyes, Clara’s nose wrinkling as she whispers to Danny.

(He thinks about it.)

 


	2. I navigate these crooked paths but they all lead back to you

Danny honestly believes the Doctor is incapable of having a quiet weekend, something good that a normal person would have—but he’s proven wrong, or at least, he kind of forgets that he thought that when he sees the star before them.

“It’s not as colorful as you’d think,” says Clara, but she says it after they’ve all been properly awed for a moment. She has good timing like that. She presses her hand against his, and he glares at her, nudging his shoulder at the Doctor, and she smiles back, shrugs, and squeezes his hand tighter. It’s her real smile, which is weird, because Danny thought she was doing it to piss off the Doctor. The Doctor is pointedly not looking at them, which is kind of like looking at them. He doesn’t look pissed. He looks… confused.

“Your lot color all the photos,” says the Doctor, after a moment. “You fill them up with things that you can’t see, that you can only imagine. You think it’s better that way.”

Danny shrugs, too awed by it to care. It’s bright. There’s some sort of shield around the TARDIS, that protects their eyes, but even so, it’s like staring at the clouds with the sun behind them. He shuts his eyes, the brightness of it burning vibrant colors against the backs of his eyelids.

“But it’s still all there, isn’t it?” Danny gestures at the vastness of bright void before them. “All those colors. That’s just the best we can do on Earth to try to get this effect. If we could get pictures of this like we can the Grand Canyon, or whatever, no one would touch them up, pull them apart to look at the colors our eyes can’t see. No one would dare. It’s… _sacred_ , isn’t it?”

“Sacred?” asks Clara. “Like, you mean, you’d pray to it?”

“You’re silly.”

“Absolutely impossible,” she says, grinning. The Doctor harrumphs.

When Danny helps the alien make dinner for himself and two humans, Danny makes him chop up carrots and celery and potatoes that Danny packed, while Danny handles the trickier ingredients.

“Why don’t you do this?”

“Because I’m busy supervising,” says Danny, and the Doctor glances at him.

He irritates the Doctor, he knows, and he revels in it. It’s maybe not one of his own better traits. But there’s something about the man, something about the way that he scoops the carrots and the celery and the potatoes into the stew and glances into the pot, like he thinks something exciting might happen, and the ordinary thing that they’re doing is somehow fascinating to him—exciting, even. It’s engaging. Danny likes to get a reaction out of him. Clara does too, that’s why she’s here. They like to impress him and irritate him in equal turns.

After dinner, before bedtime, Danny can feel the Doctor’s eyes not-looking at them, he knows that when he turns around, the Doctor’s eyes are going to be shut, ever so briefly. He presses his nose against Clara’s cheek—she smells like home, and the chalky smell of foundation, and her eyelashes flutter against his cheek in return.

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title from "Casting Lines" by Jack's Mannequin.


End file.
